Lion Poo

Sometimes you just wake up with a killer idea and have to act on it immediately. Dogs are a problem whilst bicycle touring, they were in 1884 and they still are. Is there an alternative to Dog Pepper Spray or a Smith & Wesson revolver?

I wrote this letter to find out:

17^th June 2011 07:28

Dear Head Lion Keeper, Whipsnade Zoo,

We recently visited Whipsnade and had a very lovely time at the zoo, we were pleasantly surprised at how much space the animals have to roam around in. It is no doubt because of this visit that the following idea has just popped into my head as I have woken up this morning.

About two months ago I learnt about the story of Thomas Stevens, the first man to cycle around the world in 1884. You can find out where to read about his adventure for free on my blog mentioned above.

It turns out that Thomas was born in Berkhamsted and would have cycled past my house on his round the world trip. This seemed like an excellent reason for me to follow in his footsteps & wheel tracks. I'm leaving on 2^nd August this year starting in Liverpool and aiming to get to Istanbul by October.

Unfortunately one of the perils of bicycle touring is dogs. Wild, tame or somewhere in-between they love to chase, bark and occasionally bite you. As an animal lover I always try to resolve these meetings in a non violent way which is usually the most productive method any way, however some have that glint in their eye which implies they want to have a piece of Richie leg for their din dins. This is when the idea hit me, no doubt sitting in my subconscious after seeing your lovely Lions laying against the glass window at Whipsnade. I remember seeing a documentary once where a dog was taken along side a Lion enclosure at a conservation park in South Africa and the dog became immediately submissive because by instinct it knew that the smell of Lions (my capitalization of Lions is a mark of recognition by the way, as king of the beasts :) sorry, that the smell of Lions meant that it was no time to fool around and that it had better pay some respect.

Is this true? Would it work in countries where Lions haven't roamed for 100's/1000's of years?

If so, or even if not so, would it be possible to have some Lion poo or some Lion wee to take with me or put on my bike to non-violently keep away the excited dogs between here and Istanbul?

It would be much appreciated. Would I have to gather the poo myself? It would be quite scary but well worth it. Or could we arrange for a Lion to pee on my bike? Interestingly Whipsnade is pretty much on the route that Thomas Stevens would have taken, as he cycled between Fenny Stratford and Berkhamsted and it would be excellent to pop in on the adventure and pick some up.

Thomas met a mountain Lion in the States on his trip and unfortunately had to shoot at it to save himself, rest assured I will not be bringing a gun.

This is a serious request and not someone with an animal fetish :)

Keep up the great work at the zoo.

Kind Regards

Richie Turner aged 39 ½ in August

check the blog at anordinarypursuit@blogspot.com

The Hilarious Fun of Booking A Place For Your Bicycle On A Train

On Monday I booked my train, plane and ferry tickets. To book your bicycle on a plane with Easyjet you go on line, choose your destination then choose your date then add your luggage then add your sports equipment (bicycle) and finally book and pay for your ticket. To book a bicycle place on L&D Ferries you go on line, choose your destination then choose your date then add your vehicle (Bicycle) then book and pay for your ticket. To book a bicycle on a train with Virgin you go on line, choose a booking agent eg: Red Spotted Hanky, choose your destination then choose your date then use a different booking agent because the original one shows the cheapest price as £40.05 and not £12.50 you then go to the trainline and go back to the start and choose your destination, choose your date, choose your time then go through all of the booking procedure but you DO NOT BUY IT. At this stage you phone the Virgin (premium rate) helpline to book your (free) bicycle place, when you eventually get through to Chardeep in India (that's all the info I have on the location. When I asked the guy who he was and what call centre he was in he just said "if you have any problems just tell them it's Chardeep in India, they will know who I am" :) You speak to Chardeep and tell him you want to book a place for your bicycle explaining you are ready to confirm the ticket on line but you haven't bought it yet. "Can you see if a place is available for my bike as I cant travel without it" I say. Chardeep disappears for a few minutes then returns and says "yes a space is available". So you confirm your ticket on the trainline.com and give him the reference number and then he can book you the bicycle place on the same train. Well that's the theory. What actually happened was I confirmed and paid for the non-refundable ticket on the trainline.com and when Chardeep went to book the "available" space the "available" space was "unavailable". "Oh Dear!" I said "what shall we do know Deepman" I said, to which Char replied "You will have to call back in a month when more spaces are available". 31 minutes of phone call to book a free place on the Virgin bicycle (premium rate) helpline resulted in no place for my bicycle at a cost equivalent to 25% of the fare.
 I must point out at this stage I perhaps bucked the system accidentally here as I booked my ticket through the thetrainline.com and then phoned the Virgin helpline to book my bicycle place, apparently you can phone the trainline.com to book your bicycle space but it's not mentioned anywhere on the main site and you can't do it online. To be fair to Virgin, thetrainline.com and good ole Chardeep, later in the day Maddy booked her bike place on the Eurostar back from Paris and they have exactly the same system. You can't book the place and your ticket on line in the same transaction, so exactly the same could happen. Why boats and planes which probably carry less bicycles can do it and trains can't, well I will let you work that out. If you travel on trains in the UK it will not come of much as a surprise at all. I should have known that all would not run smoothly when in the Virgin bicycle terms it states: "...our trains have racks for up to 4 bikes or 2 tandems (but not penny farthings)" . What would Thomas think!Publish Post

All systems are go! Train, Ferry & Plane tickets booked.

The weekends shenanigans have really got me in the mood. So I have taken the plunge and committed myself to some dates this summer to go in search of Thomas Stevens. This morning I booked the necessary tickets to tackle Part One of my round the world bicycle trip. Just like Star Wars I shall be starting half way through the story and intend to complete the European leg of the adventure first. Chapter 5 to Chapter 9. This will mean just like Stevens I will take a train from London up to Liverpool arriving on the 2nd August 2011. From here I will cycle down through England tracing the footsteps and wheeltracks of the "white helmeted one" stopping at home in Apsley a few days later. I will then hopefully ride down to Newhaven via London with my lovely girlfriend and we will sail from Newhaven on the 11th August to Dieppe in France. Once in mainland Europe Maddy will accompany me to Paris before heading back home on the Eurostar. After I have waved her off at the Gare du Nord I will then be on my own onwards to Istanbul. I should arrive in Istanbul by the 29th September and will then fly home.

If this outrageous plan all goes well I can start plotting the next parts of the round the world journey. 

For any seasoned traveller or bicycle tourist this would hardly be an epic. For me on the other hand,well:

The furthest I have ever cycled in a day is 62 miles, the most days I've ever cycled and camped in a row is five. I have never been away from home for longer than five weeks and I've never been away from people I know for longer than 4 weeks. Add to that, it wasn't long ago that I never stepped outside my front door for two months. It's a big world out there and I'm about to cycle around it...........arghhh!

Faster than a Train, Naked Bike Riding & Penny Farthing Racing

Wow what a weekend of cycling activity, well more a Saturday of cycling activity. Sunday was for recovering. Saturday 13:50 Apsley. I was to race my girlfriend Maddy from our house to Hyde Park Corner in London. It's probably a distance of 25 miles by road and the train takes about 30 mins into the main station at Euston. I was using only a quarter loaded bike on the quickest route I could pedal. She was going to walk to Apsley railway station and get the train to Euston. Then tube,bus,walk whatever was available to Hyde Park Corner to rendezvous for the start of the London part of the World Naked Bike Ride which started at 15:30. I hadn't been on the bike at all for the last week due to being ill and was a bit apprehensive on how I would be. I got off to a bad start by forgetting the keys to my padlock, this put me about a minute behind. When I passed Maddy walking up our road she was already half way to the station. We had arranged that she would phone me when she got to Euston to see how long I would be, just in case I didn't have any energy. When she called I was about a minute behind what I had hoped for and was just coming off the A41 and crossing the M1 motorway at J4 heading up to Stanmore. I knew I had about an hour to go from there. I had cycled this route for the first time last week and the traffic wasn't too bad, that was a lot later in the evening though. Lunchtime today was a lot busier and slower going. I came up to Marble Arch with three minutes to spare and had not heard back from Maddy. I hot wheeled it down Park Lane and weaved my way to the fountain that we had arranged to meet at just off Rotten Row. She wasn't there and time was dead on 15:30. When I eventually got through to her phone she explained she had been stuck on the tube with no signal. So a resounding win for the bicycle over public transport...or so i thought. She also explained she had been shopping on Oxford Street for 15 minutes! I think we shall call that a draw then :)

The Naked Bike Ride was just getting started when we arrived and nice weather made for a good turn out. People of all sexes,colours,shapes and persuasions had arrived on bicycles,tricycles,rickshaws and skates to promote better attitudes to bicycle safety and body image. Bodypaint,comedy masks and sound systems were in full effect. I think I will join in next year now I know more about it. You have been warned!

Cycled down to Brixton for a few hours for a birthday beer with some friends then headed back to the site of Smithfields Meat Market for the 2011 Nocturne London series. On the way back to Smithfields a guy on a track bike fixie pulled up next to me at the lights and we had a chat.
About two hours later I was watching him participate in the "Fixed Gear Longest Skid" competition, hilarious! Not only that but he only went and won it!!!!!!!!!!!! Well done Jim from Brixton Cycles. After the skid competition was the event I had come for: The Brooks Ordinary Trophy, penny farthing racing in London for the first time in over a 100 years. Seeing the riders sitting pretty astride their iron horses really hammered home to me what a site it must have been to see Thomas Stevens ride into town when nobody had ever seen a bicycle before. One can only wonder what was going through the minds of people witnessing such a sight for the first time. This was the first time I had actually seen an Ordinary being ridden and all the photos and videos in the world don't do it justice. Incredible sight! The start of the race itself was signalled by muskets being fired and as the smoke rose into the night sky, for a second you were taken back to very different time. The race was a close run affair with the lead changing several times throughout the race. Congratulations to James Brailsford who won.
My favourite rider was sporting the Thomas Stevens helmet, I wonder if it was Joff Somerfield?

Click here to watch the the final lap                                  Click here to see the days route  

Having been suitable impressed with the Nocturne I left Smithfields at 21:30 in the dark and had the lovely pleasure of cycling out of London on a Saturday night. The fun of the earlier part of the day had started to catch up with me and the last part of the ride was a real slog. I eventually coasted home at half past midnight, 62 miles after I had started. That is the longest days riding I have done this year, probably ever! I reckon that means I could cycle around the world then...to be continued.

Volume 1 now completed

Stevens wrote an account of his journey entitled Around the World by Bicycle. It is a 1000 page, two volume document of the man's travels.
Volume 1 takes us across America from San Francisco to New York then by boat to England. Here he cycles down from Liverpool to Newhaven on the South coast via Berkhamsted and past my window!
From Newhaven he steams across the English Channel to Dieppe in France and continues through Europe to Turkey and Persia, finishing in Teheran.
Having now read this volume I am going through it again plotting every place he visited on a Google map.
It's quite time consuming but it really helps you get to know the places and his experiences.
If you would like to read the book for yourself you can download it digitally for free or read it online at the links below.
Vol 1. Vol 2.
Both volumes have recently been re-printed as one book, which includes some beautiful sketches of his travels that really take you back to a time of true adventure. Buying it from Amazon using the links below will help to fund my adventure.

Teepees an Injuns

As I read the book I can't help but cast a wry smile at the thought of him arriving at a native American camp and leaning his penny farthing against a teepee.:) I don't think that's very likely to happen today, but none the less I really rather fancy following his wheel tracks and seeing what the places he travelled through are like now. A plan is born.

But first lets read some more of the book.

After finding out about Thomas Stevens and his first global navigation by bicycle I downloaded the book to my Kindle for free at Project Gutenberg . What happened next has kept me captivated ever since.
At 8am on 22nd April 1884 Thomas set off from San Francisco, California, USA.on a 50" Columbia Ordinary (Penny Farthing) bicycle  to cycle across America and indeed the world.
When I realised that Thomas not only arrived in the UK in Liverpool but also cycled down through his birthplace of Berkhamsted, a quick check of some old maps assured me he would have cycled right past my window. This, coupled with the fact that Apsley, the village where I live is slap bang in between Berkhamsted and Kings Langley, and Langley being the surname of the website where I found out about the first global "Wheeler" was a good enough reason to get me started on an escapade.

So What's All This About Then?

Twas but a month ago (May 2011) that I first came across the man Thomas Stevens.
I had somehow clicked to the website www.jimlangley.net . I had never been there before and I still can't work out why I ended up there. It was something cycling related I imagine as Jim is a bicycle afficinado. When I landed on the site there was picture of a man with a moustache standing next to a penny farthing. When I started to read the text and realise he was not only the first person to cycle round the world but was also born and raised in Berkhamsted, the village next to mine, I just had to get hold of the book he wrote about his adventure and find out more.
Hopefully this blog will keep track of the adventure that is about to unfold.
To be continued...